THE SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND’S RISE TO POWER.

The silence in the room hung heavy, it was deafening as Elena stared down at the document that Alex was giving to her. “What is that?” She demanded, her patience wearing thin.Alex forced a smile, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, it’s a treatment agreement.” He lied, the words falling smoothly out of his mouth.The last thing he wanted was for Elena to know that he was handing her a divorce agreement because there was a part of him that told him that she wouldn’t sign it if she knew what it really was.Elena looked from the paper to Alex, “but why?” She asked, puzzled. “I mean, what other treatment do you need when you’ve already been discharged from the hospital?” She added.As she spoke, she glanced down at the document, but Alex was quick, he’d already pressed his hand over it to block her from reading the heading.He closed his eyes, there was no denying that he was still in pain, but he swallowed the pain down, forcing a tight smile that felt like shards of glass in hi

Smiling, Alex was quick to pick up the call, and apologize for leaving them high and dry, but he never got the apology to come out of his mouth before Julian’s voice bursted out in excitement.“Alex? Holy shit, man!” Julian’s voice exploded through the speaker, raw excitement crackling like electricity. “You finally came around! I can’t believe it, I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.” Julian added as he laughed.“Oh god, you have absolutely no idea how I felt when I got your text, Alex. Top of our elite program, rarest talent I’ve ever seen, and you walked away from medicine like it was nothing. I grieved that shit, brother. I grieved it hard. It felt like I lost my own mother.”Alex leaned against the wrought-iron gate, the cold metal biting through his shirt into his bruised back. He couldn’t believe how excited Julian was to hear from him.A bitter laugh scraped from his throat, but warmth flickered in his chest for the first time in days, real, human connection cutting th

The shock of the table flipping assailed Elena and Marcus so hard that they froze on the spot, both their eyes widening as they took in the scattered mess before them.Elena’s wine-stained lips parted in a gasp, and Marcus’ face twisted, his arm wrapping around Elena’s waist in a possessive curl that made Alexander’s stomach twist with anger.“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Elena finally found her voice, her heart racing so hard in her chest that she had to swallow and regulate her breathing.“What kind of madness has possessed you?” She spat, her voice slicing through the wreckage like a whip. “Did I ask you for anything more than a simple apology to Marcus? Since when did you become so incredibly unreasonable?”Her chest heaved with every dragged breath, she still couldn’t believe that Alex was capable of getting so angry that he flipped the table with one single movement.“Oh my god.” Marcus muttered as he pulled Elena against his chest as if shielding her from some wild animal

“I have no doubt that you’re going to attain such great heights,” Julian responded with a smile. “You’ve always been the best of us, Alex. Those hands of yours save lives like they were made for it. Just… stay sharp out there.”Alex returned Julian’s smile, and their travel went on as the days blurred into a grueling haze of dusty roads, jolting tires over potholes, and stifling heat that almost caused them to pass out.Five days later, the jeep finally came to a halt at the edge of the first remote village. Alexander stepped out, his boots sinking into the parched earth, and the chaos in front of him almost rendered him speechless.Wow. He had no idea there was a world like this out there.Screams filled the humid air, raw desperate wails from mothers clutching limp children. Families huddled under makeshift shelters of torn tarps and branches, bodies sprawled on mats slick with sweat and vomit. The metallic tang of blood and sickness hung thick in the air, mixing with the smoke fro

Elena’s mouth hung open, but no word came out of her mouth. Of all the things she expected to hear from the man she had taken back after he had abandoned her, she hadn’t expected those words.Her mind drifted to how their relationship had been before Marcus abandoned her, how broken she’d been, how Alex had been the one to pick up her broken pieces.The realization caused something painful to twist in her chest, but the last thing she wanted to do was admit that Alex had been a good husband all along.She never saw him as anything more than a placeholder for Marcus, but now that Marcus was back and Alex was God knows where, she felt as though she had lost something so important to her.Shaking her head as if the thoughts would fall right out of it, she smiled at him. “It’s not the process that matters,” she said to Marcus through gritted teeth.“It’s the action that matters, I want you to draw up a bath for me because I’m too tired to do it myself. Come on, it’s not something so hard